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June 2012

About This Issue

Recent years have seen what would appear to be an uptick in reports of U.S.-based Islamic jihadist terrorism. Though these plots have overwhelmingly been unsuccessful, even one success is obviously one too many. What do the experts make of these sensational events? Is this the way of the future… or what? And how should public policymakers respond?

Kicking off the discussion this month is Risa Brooks, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and author of the recent article “Muslim ‘Homegrown’ Terrorism in the United States,” (International Security, Fall 2011). Her lead essay will be joined with replies by Douglas Farah of the International Assessment and Strategy Center; Michael German, a former FBI agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union; and Brian Michael Jenkins of the RAND Corporation.

Lead Essay

An Exaggerated Threat

In recent years, public officials and terrorism analysts have warned of a growing threat of Muslim homegrown terrorist attacks: attacks initiated by American Muslim citizens and residents against targets in the United States. Following the Madrid 2004 and London 2005 bombings, analysts became concerned that Muslims in the United States could be inspired to similar terrorist activity. A subsequent spike in 2009 in the number of American Muslims arrested on terrorism charges seemed to confirm that the phenomenon had taken root in the United States. Homegrown terrorism has since emerged as a major public policy concern. As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano cautioned in February 2011, “One of the most striking elements of today’s threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens.”[1] According to Attorney General Eric Holder, “The American People would be surprised at the depth of the [homegrown terrorist] threat.”[2]

In reality, Americans do not have much to fear from Muslim homegrown terrorism and should be skeptical of claims that the threat is increasing. Close analysis reveals little evidence that Muslim Americans demonstrate either the will or capacity to plot attacks in the United States.

Assessing the depth of the terrorist threat requires, first, looking for evidence that growing numbers of Muslims in the United States are seeking to attack American targets. The logic here is straightforward: Unless more terrorists are motivated to initiate plots in the United States, there will be no more homegrown attacks. Unfortunately, evaluating precisely how many American Muslims are attracted to terrorism and will in the future engage in terrorist plotting is a difficult enterprise.

One potential starting point is the scholarly literature on the causes of “radicalization,” in which analysts evaluate the pathways through which individuals transform from regular people into aspiring terrorists.[3] Such analyses catalogue the attitudinal and behavioral changes that precede an individual’s turn to terrorism and in some cases provide illuminating narratives about terrorists’ life histories. These studies, however, do not provide any evidence about the overall number or percentage of American Muslims who are motivated to engage in terrorism. They cannot even tell us whether individuals exhibiting the danger signs of radicalization will actually take the steps to plot an attack.

The limited evidence available that does speak to American Muslims’ support for terrorism suggests little basis for concern. An in-depth study of Muslim communities in the United States funded by the Department of Justice and led by the sociologist Charles Kurzman and his colleagues found that there is little support for militancy in these communities.[4] This conclusion is echoed in public opinion surveys undertaken by the Pew Research Center.[5]

If there is little evidence that American Muslims are increasingly drawn to terrorism, what, then, should we make of the fact that more have been arrested on terrorism offenses in recent years? Do those arrests not indicate growth in the incidence of homegrown terrorist activity?

Not necessarily. In fact, there are reasons why the number of people arrested on terrorism related charges may increase even if no more individuals are engaging in terrorist plotting. One reason is the growing array of tools available to law enforcement to detect terrorist activity, which increases the odds that activities that may in the past have been overlooked are instead discovered. Since late 2008, the FBI has been granted expanded authority to undertake “assessments” and open preliminary investigations of suspect Americans without first establishing a factual basis for the inquiry. According to the New York Times, for example, from March 31, 2009 to March 31, 2011, the FBI initiated more than 82,000 assessments of individuals and groups suspected of potentially being involved in terrorist activities in the United States.[6]

Not only do officials have more leeway to investigate suspicious activity, they also have strong incentives to make sure they scour the environment for all evidence of terrorist activity. One motivation is to ensure that those accused of terrorism are actually charged with terrorist-related offenses or breaches of national security, rather than lesser charges, such as immigration violations.[7] In addition, prosecutors often decline to pursue terrorism cases referred by law enforcement; this high declination rate generates incentives to uncover every bit of evidence necessary to ensure cases go forward.[8] These efforts too contribute to the likelihood that potential terrorist activities will be detected that otherwise may have passed unnoticed. In short, greater investment in screening and latitude in investigations may be increasing the amount of terrorist activity uncovered by authorities.

Evidence of an increased probability of detection would be especially significant in light of law enforcement’s extensive use of sting operations against terrorism suspects. Sting operations are initiated when authorities identify an individual suspected of wanting to attack Americans but who has not yet developed a plan for doing so. Undercover agents or informants can provide the aspiring terrorist everything from rent money to fake explosive devices. They act as sounding boards and virtual co-conspirators as the individuals refine their plans. Although these suspected terrorists commonly exhibit the will to commit violence, it is this companionship and assistance that helps them to advance their plots and take concrete action on behalf of their ambitions. This is critical: Without assistance, these plots may have remained aspirational, never reaching the point of implementation and therefore never yielding arrests to be counted in terrorism statistics. By my account, of the 18 plots that reached some measure of operational readiness between September 2001 and December 2010, 12 involved informants or undercover agents at the formative phase of the plot, before perpetrators identified targets or sought out weapons.[9] In short, the number of terrorist arrests provides a poor indicator of the underlying propensity of American Muslims to engage in terrorist plotting.

Even if more Muslims are attracted to terrorist activity, however, assessing the homegrown threat requires looking beyond just individuals’ motivations to initiate terrorist plots. It requires assessing their actual capabilities to execute deadly attacks. Here, too, the argument falls short that homegrown terrorism represents a growing threat to Americans.

There are at least two major problems facing Muslim homegrown terrorists in executing successful attacks. First, the United States presents a difficult security environment in which to be a modern-day terrorist; those who initiate plotting are apt to be detected and foiled by arrests before they can act on their plans. Second, homegrown terrorists lack the skills and savvy of seasoned international terrorists, rendering it difficult for them to navigate the country’s impermissive security environment and to carry out the technical tasks essential to executing an attack.

Take, to start, the nature of the security environment and the obstacles it presents. Although a variety of factors render the United States inhospitable to terrorist plotting, crucial is the lack of support for militancy by members of the Muslim community, which deprives aspiring terrorists of sanctuary as they prepare attacks. Muslim communities engage in substantial self-policing, seeking to deter the turn to militancy by members of their communities, and if that fails, they commonly report suspected militants to authorities.[10] A study by Syracuse University, for example, found that from 2001 through 2010, in 22 percent of all cases in which a defendant was charged with some terrorist related offense, unsolicited tips from family or community members brought the person to law enforcement’s attention.[11]

The empirical record of successful attacks in the United States also underscores the difficultly of engaging in terrorist plotting without being detected. Since 9/11, there have been only two successful attacks in the United States: Major Nidal Hasan’s Fort Hood attack and a lesser known shooting by the Muslim convert Carlos Bledsoe outside an Arkansas recruiting station, which harmed two soldiers. All those who have sought to prepare a terrorist attack in the United States, with the apparent exception of Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, have been known to law enforcement before they executed the plot, including Hasan and Bledsoe.

In addition to constraints posed by the security environment, the amateur nature of the pool of aspiring terrorists in the United States complicates efforts to execute deadly attacks. These individuals are not part of a hardened cadre of foreign fighters or the well-vetted and trained operatives that al Qaeda used for the 9/11 attacks. Rather, they lack experience in carrying out essential tasks, such as those necessary to safeguard their plots from exposure. A recent survey of cases revealed that aspiring homegrown terrorists commonly make rudimentary mistakes in operational security, such as advertising their intentions online or otherwise attracting the attention of regular citizens who then report them to authorities.[12]

These amateurs also lack technical skills, such as the ability to fabricate bombs, which remain the weapon of choice for terrorists. In this regard, some might point to the Internet or overseas training as helping terrorists overcome their inadequacies, thereby intensifying the homegrown threat. By providing easily accessible expertise and instructional guidance, for example, the Internet could compensate for a lack of formal training. Studies of bomb-making manuals, however, reveal online information to often be spotty and poorly organized.[13] Moreover, an aspiring bomb-maker needs the opportunity to practice and experiment under local conditions.[14]

Overseas training also poses unique challenges for those seeking to build their terrorist skill-set. Not least is proving to leaders of the overseas militant organization that one is not an operative of a foreign intelligence agency and is, in fact, a good candidate for training. Some who have sought out training have been rejected because of their unproven credentials.[15] Even if aspiring terrorists do manage to acquire overseas training, however, it remains of uncertain benefit once they return to the United States. The plot, for example, that officials cite as the most serious since 9/11—Najibullah Zazi and his co-conspirators’ alleged plan to bomb the NYC subway—ran into trouble when, despite having received overseas instruction, Zazi stumbled when formulating his peroxide bomb. He reportedly emailed his overseas contacts for help, and those communications were intercepted. Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, also received overseas training, but he too had trouble crafting a viable bomb. Part of the problem, according to the New York City police commissioner, was that Shahzad deliberately selected an inferior grade ammonium nitrate fertilizer for his device, in order to lessen the chances his purchases would be detected.[16] His case demonstrates how the security environment in the United States can elevate the skills necessary to be an effective terrorist, by forcing individuals to rely on more complex bomb-making technologies.

Indeed, an implicit recognition of these obstacles may be why analysts increasingly emphasize the threat of “lone-wolf” homegrown terrorist attacks. That there have been few such attacks, despite their operational simplicity, however, suggests either that there are no aspiring terrorists in the country or that plotters of even simple terrorist attacks are being detected or deterred before they can harm Americans.

In sum, under close scrutiny the homegrown terrorist threat looks far less threatening than public officials often claim. There are, moreover, serious consequences to exaggerating the threat posed by Muslim Americans.

To start, overstating this threat could lead to the misallocation of increasingly scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources. As the United States enters an era of fiscal austerity, officials must evaluate the opportunity costs of investing in domestic counterterrorism versus other priorities. Consider, for example, how the FBI’s shift in resources from white collar crime to counterterrorism after the September 11 attacks reduced the agency’s capacity to handle cases of mortgage and securities fraud at the height of the financial crisis.[17] While a balance must be struck in financing domestic counterterrorism, recent sting operations required dozens of agents and officials per investigation. Serious questions need to be asked by government officials and by the American public regarding what qualifies as the appropriate nature and amount of investment in domestic counterterrorism.

In addition, overstating the threat of Muslim homegrown terrorism could lead to the adoption of counterproductive counterterrorism methods. Methods commonly employed by law enforcement in Muslim communities, such as extensive surveillance and cultivation of informants, are inherently challenging for any segment of society to endure, even when agents treat them with care. And a careful approach is rarely encouraged by an atmosphere of suspicion. Recent controversies associated with the New York City Police Department and its Counterterrorism Bureau underscore these risks. These controversies include the 2011 arrest of Jose Pimental, in whose case the FBI declined to become involved when questions arose about the role of the NYPD’s informant in the sting operation; reports by the Associated Press that the NYPD spied on members of the Muslim community, such as Imam Sheikh Rada Shata, who had previously cooperated with authorities in their counterterrorism initiatives; or evidence that the NYPD used a film with inflammatory claims about Islam in its training programs.[18]

Controversies of this kind undermine the relationships of trust that form the basis for cooperation between Muslim communities and public officials. Yet these communities have demonstrated a willingness and a capacity to report signs of terrorist activity in their midst, and their help is both the most efficient and least invasive method of exposing aspiring militants. Alienating those who would provide such information will carry a heavy cost.

Finally, exaggerating the threat posed by homegrown Muslim terrorists leads to a distorted image of the nature of domestic terrorism in the United States that is harmful to the social fabric of the country. While small in number, acts of domestic terrorism in the United States involve individuals of diverse ideological extremes. Domestic terrorism may encompass violent splinters from the Occupy Movement, anti-government militants like the “Sovereign Citizens,” or Islamist jihadis—among others.[19] Exaggerating threats from Islamist militancy at the expense of a more comprehensive discussion of domestic terrorism not only contributes to mistrust between Muslim Americans and other Americans, it is counter to the country’s long heritage of respecting people of diverse religions and backgrounds.

Notes

[1] Janet A. Napolitano, “Understanding the Homeland Threat Landscape—Considerations for the 112th Congress,” testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, 112th Cong., 1st sess., February 9, 2011.

[6] Charlie Savage of the New York Times has reported extensively on the 2008 guidelines and the expanding authority of federal agents to undertake “assessments” of Americans without establishing first a factual basis for the inquiry. Significantly, the guidelines have rendered it easier to employ human sources, or informants. See, from the New York Times, “F.B.I. Cases Wide Net Under Relaxed Rules for Terrorism Inquiries,” March 26, 2011; “F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds,” June 12, 2011; “F.B.I. Focusing on Security Over Ordinary Crime,” August 23, 2011. Documents provided to Savage under the Freedom of Information Act appear here.

[7] Discussed in “Terrorist Trial Report Card: September 11, 2001–September 11, 2010” (New York: Center on Law and Security, New York University Law School, 2010). For illustrations of these dynamics see “Terror Plot Foiled: Inside the Smadi Case,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, November 5, 2010,; Mike Robinson, “FBI Stays Undercover Longer to Aid Prosecution of Alleged Plotters,” Virginian-Pilot, September 26, 2009.

[8] “Who Is a Terrorist? Government Failure to Define Terrorism Undermines Enforcement, Puts

[15] Take the case of five Muslim American suspects who traveled to Pakistan for training but were repeatedly turned down “because they were foreigners and had no local references.” See Jim Sciutto and Pierre Thomas, “Terror Wannabes? Arrested Americans Rejected for Jihad Training,” ABC News, December 10, 2009.

[16] Anahad O’Connor, “Weak Times Sq. Car Bomb Is Called Intentional,” New York Times, July 21,

[17] Eric Lichblau, David Johnston, and Ron Nixon, “F.B.I. Struggles to Handle Financial Fraud Cases,” New York Times, October 18, 2008. See also Paul Shukovsky, Tracy Johnson, and Daniel Lathrop, “Focus on National Security after 9/11 Means That the FBI Has Turned Its Back on Thousands of White-Collar Crimes: The Terrorism Trade-Off,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 11, 2007.

Response Essays

Jihadist Recruiting Is Widespread

With the weakening of the historic al Qaeda core group, the death of Osama bin Laden, and the lack of a successful attack by Muslim groups on the homeland since 9/11, it seems easy to conclude that the danger of homegrown attacks is overstated by those who call attention to the phenomenon. However, some stubborn facts mitigate against such an easy dismissal of the concerns.

Dr. Brooks may be correct in noting that most of the broad Muslim population in the United States, estimated to be roughly 2 million, has neither the will nor the capacity to successfully plot attacks in the United States. What is left unstated is that the web of Muslim Brotherhood groups operating in the United States continues to inculcate and support a violent, exclusionist Islamist theology that represents a significant threat of radicalization at home and abroad. This theology is labeled “fundamentalist” because it is indeed well-grounded in the Koran and hadith, and after generations of Saudi funding it now dominates the main centers and levers of Islamic dawa, or proselytizing. Nonetheless these groups, largely foreign-funded and controlled by a core cadre in the United States, have persuaded successive administrations, including the current one, to view them as the sole valid interlocutors for the larger Muslim community.

The Congressional Research Service found that from May 2009 through October 2011, there were arrests made in 32 “ ‘homegrown,’ jihadist-inspired terrorist plots by American citizens or legal permanent residents of the United States.” In the seven prior years since the 9/11 attacks, there had been only 21. “The apparent spike in such activity from May 2009 to October 2011 suggests that at least some Americans—even if a tiny minority—continue to be susceptible to ideologies supporting a violent form of jihad.”[1]

Islamist theology and support for violent and subversive forms of jihad is documented as comprising a significant aspect of what is taught in most of the nation’s mosques and educational centers established or run by Muslim Brotherhood groups. These groups maintain a public discourse of moderation and a generic condemnation of terrorism, but are in fact deeply enmeshed in a theological tradition of violent jihad, anti-Semitism, and a disavowal of the West and of the United States in particular. This is the dangerous element driving those actively willing to carry out attacks.

The Brotherhood theology’s modern roots are in the writings of its founder, Hassan al-Banna, and his most influential successor, Sayyid Qutb. In a seminal 1946 article published in Egyptian al Risala magazine after visiting the United States, Qutb wrote: “All Westerners are the same: a rotten conscience, a false civilization. How I hate these Westerners, how I despise all of them without exception.” He came to believe the world is now in a state of jahiliyyah, or the primitive savagery of pre-Islamic revelation, and that Muslims had lost their way in large part because of Western influences. This echoes the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (d 1309), the most-cited source on jihadi websites, according the U.S. Military Academy Center for Combating Terrorism.

Qutb’s thinking crystallized in a slim tract, now his most enduring work, titled “Milestones,” which outlines not only the dismal state of the world, but the duty of Muslims to dispel the darkness by spreading Islam by whatever means available. All non-Islamic states were deemed illegitimate. Only the Koran, with its laws, is viewed as legitimate.[2] Qutb was hanged in 1966, but his book has remained in print in many languages and is sold on Muslim Brotherhood websites and in mosques around the world. The book can be found here.

There is ample documentation of the ties of such legacy groups as the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR); the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); Muslim American Society and others to the Muslim Brotherhood, officially known as the al Ikhwan al-Muslimin. Much of the publicly available information was laid out in a series of court exhibits in the government’s case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) in Texas, where five leaders of the organization were convicted on 108 charges of support for terrorism, money laundering and tax fraud.[3] The case clearly ties the founding of CAIR and other Islamist groups directly to the Muslim Brotherhood, while the documents themselves, written for internal Ikhwan use, embrace the teaching of Qutb and other radicalized leaders. Among the documents presented was one from the early days of the Ikhwan in the United States declaring that:

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.[4]

There is ample documentation of the ongoing radical message these groups advance today, often through the main Brotherhood theologian, Yousef al-Qaradawi, who continues to publicly advocate the destruction of the state of Israel, the beating of women, the killing of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, justification of suicide bombings and the Islamization of the world. He has argued that armed jihad against the West is not wrong, simply impractical in the current situation where most Muslim populations are largely unarmed. In August 2004, Qaradawi issued a religious ruling that stated,

[A]ll of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately. The mutilation of corpses [however] is forbidden in Islam.[5]

On January 9, 2009, he called on Allah to “take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”[6]

Dr. Brooks argues that one of the reasons for the growing number of arrests is the greater amount of tools law enforcement officials have to initiate inquiries into those potentially involved in terrorism, thereby giving the officials not only more leeway but “strong incentives to make sure they scour the environment for all evidence of terrorist activity.” This, however, overlooks the fact that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, even more leeway existed and the level of alert, if anything, was significantly greater. It also ignores the deep pool of hate speech and violent discourse, premised on the belief that Islam alone is divinely ordained to rule the entire world, which forms a core tenet of much of the Islamic teaching in the United States.

Given that the legacy Brotherhood groups control a significant number of the mosques in the United States, and actively promote Qaradawi’s teachings, as well as act as the most visible interlocutors among the Muslim communities and local, state, and national government agencies, one cannot simply dismiss the message or messengers. As long as the message continues to be delivered, the threat remains.

[4] United States of America v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development et al, No. 3:04-CR-240-G, United States District Court for the Northern Division of Texas, Dallas Division, Government Exhibit 003-0085.

Incompetent Terrorists, Courageous Airline Passengers, Vengeful Wives

Professor Risa Brooks is entirely correct in her conclusion that alarmist claims of a growing Muslim-American “homegrown terrorism” threat are overblown, and that this deliberate exaggeration distorts the counterterrorism policy debate and encourages enforcement activities that damage the social fabric of a nation founded on principles of individual liberty and religious freedom. Even without challenging the dubious methodology used to produce the annual number of terrorist incidents often cited, which the ACLU, Muslim Advocates, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council do here (pdf), and Dr. Brooks does here (pdf), the data showing an apparent rise in Muslim-American domestic terrorism in 2009 was belied by subsequent drops in 2010 and 2011, and overall the numbers reflect historically low levels of domestic terrorism. As Brian Michael Jenkins has previously pointed out, more Americans were killed by domestic terrorism incidents in the 1970s than in the decade after 9/11.

So I am concerned by the time Dr. Brooks spends attempting to account for the rise in terrorism arrests—a rise that doesn’t exist—and particularly her hypothesis that “greater investment in screening and latitude in investigations may be increasing the amount of terrorist activity uncovered by the authorities.” Her statement that the United States presents an “impermissive security environment” for a would-be terrorist might lead a casual reader of her article to infer that the vast and expanding post-9/11 security measures are necessary and effective in keeping us safe from would-be terrorists, though I don’t believe this is necessarily her intent.

In fact, the available evidence points to the opposite conclusion: despite the increasing scrutiny of Muslim-Americans and the still expanding counterterrorism intelligence gathering authorities, a small number of actual terrorists continue to slip through the cracks while tens of thousands of innocent people become ensnared in the surveillance dragnet. Making this point is crucial in this discussion, because the motive behind the drumbeat of fear-mongering about a growing homegrown threat is to justify continuing expansion of the surveillance industrial complex, even as we see the degradation of al Qaeda and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down. While an honest evaluation of the threat would argue for a reduction in security budgets and a normalization of police and intelligence powers, in March of this year the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) re-wrote its guidelines to remove traditional protections for U.S. personal information, even where no terrorism connection exists. This change, which authorizes the NCTC to ingest entire databases belonging to other federal agencies, regardless of the countless innocent Americans impacted, comes closer to realizing Admiral John Poindexter’s dystopian dream of Total Information Awareness than any previous single change in policy. Whether it will help NCTC become any better at finding terrorists is doubtful according to a 2008 National Research Council study of the feasibility of data mining technology for finding terrorists.

Dr. Brooks references changes to FBI investigative guidelines made in December 2008, which removed the requirement of a factual predicate before starting investigations, in arguing that these relaxed rules may lead to the identification of more terrorists. In fact, while the number of these suspicion-less investigations called “assessments” skyrocketed—over 82,000 were conducted from March 2009 through March of 2011—the number of terrorists indicted dropped significantly over that period. Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina reported (pdf) that twenty Muslim-Americans were arrested for participating in attempted terrorist plots in 2011, almost exactly the average of 19.3 per annum since 2001, and down from 26 in 2010 and 49 in 2009. And the drop in terrorism indictment rates is only more dramatic when the analysis includes material support for terrorism cases, which Kurzman shows have steadily declined in both number and significance, with the 8 cases registered in 2011 representing the lowest number since 2001.

The 82,325 assessments the FBI conducted found information sufficient to justify initiating more thorough preliminary or full investigations only 3,315 times, which is shocking considering the evidentiary standard for opening such a preliminary investigation is only “information or an allegation” that a crime may occur in the future. Yet the more than 79,000 innocent people subjected to these assessments, which may have included tactics like FBI interviews of neighbors and work colleagues and intensive physical surveillance, will have their personal information bound up in FBI files essentially forever. The high rate of declined prosecutions in FBI terrorism cases further shows that even full investigations most often fail to find significant evidence of criminal activity.

Meanwhile, Carlos Bledsoe, Nidal Hasan, and David Headley, were able to accomplish their deadly goals even after being investigated by the FBI. And it is not just the FBI’s driftnet approach that fails to identify real threats among the ocean of information being collected. Despite its intensive and indiscriminate surveillance of Muslim-American communities throughout New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, the NYPD failed to identify Najibullah Zazi and his co-conspirators, or would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, as journalist Marcy Wheeler details here, here, and here. That both Zazi and Shahzad were able to travel to Pakistani terrorist training camps, then back to the U.S., then get explosives into New York City is an unmitigated failure of our national security enterprise, regardless of the fact that Zazi chose to flush his explosives down the toilet after realizing he was under surveillance, and Shahzad’s Rube Goldberg device failed to explode.

The current state of the discourse over the scope of Muslim-American terrorism only further distorts the nature of the threat. Categorizing all violence by disparate Muslim terrorist groups, nations, and individuals with very different methods, interests, and goals as all fitting under one umbrella defined by their common religion is as wrong and misleading as it would be to include violence by the Ku Klux Klan, the Irish Republican Army, anti-abortion murderers, and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army under a banner of “Christian terrorists.” Treating an alleged assassination plot by Iranian intelligence agents (Manour Arbasiar), a planned firecracker attack against a Shia Mosque (Roger Stockham), an online threat to the South Park creators (Jesse Curtis Morton), and acts by individuals with clear mental health issues (Emerson Begolly and Jose Pimentel), as examples of a like kind of threat can only mislead policy makers and confuse intelligence agents and law enforcement officers who are already laboring under a flood of factually flawed and biased anti-Muslim training materials. It’s no wonder our anti-terrorism policies and practices too often target innocents instead of focusing on real threats.

In the end, we have too often had to rely on incompetent terrorists, courageous airline passengers, and vengeful wives as our defense against terrorism. This is a clear indication that it is long past time for a thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of the broad powers and fat budgets we’ve given the national security apparatus, from the USA-PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act, to state and local intelligence fusion centers, to the new NCTC guidelines. The mercifully small number and scope of terrorist incidents in the U.S. last year is not evidence our national security establishment is working well; by that measure we would have to have given it high marks for effectiveness on September 10, 2001. A continually expanding national security state that soaks up resources even as it abuses our rights is not the best way to address a small and diminishing threat, particularly, as Dr. Brooks points out, when the anti-terrorism measures actually create more hostility and distrust between the government and the communities they serve.

Getting the Threat Right

Overall, I agree with Risa Brooks’ contention that the threat of homegrown jihadist terrorism in the Untied States has proved to be less than many feared. “Unfortunately,” she writes, “evaluating precisely how many American Muslims are attracted to terrorism and will in the future engage in terrorist plotting is a difficult enterprise.” True, but we do have indications in the number of those who have been charged with supporting al Qaeda or other jihadist terrorist organizations, joining or attempting to join jihadist fronts abroad, or more seriously, plotting terrorist attacks in the United States.

Despite al Qaeda’s campaign to inspire and activate homegrown terrorists, only a tiny turnout has responded. Excluding non-jihadists connected with Hamas or Hezbollah, between 9/11 and the end of 2011, there were 96 cases involving 192 persons. If we estimate the American Muslim population to be several million, this works out to be a mere six persons per 100,000 over a ten-year period, or .6 per 100,000 annually—a meager yield. As marketing operations go, al Qaeda is not selling a lot of cars.

The small numbers suggest that al Qaeda’s ideology has gained little traction in America’s Muslim communities. The cases offer no evidence of an organized jihadist underground, with the exception of a local effort to recruit young Somali men in Minneapolis. Decisions to join jihad are individual, not community driven.

There was an uptick in the number of cases and the number of individuals arrested in 2009 and 2010. Risa Brooks writes that “there are reasons why the number of people arrested on terrorism charges may increase even if no more individuals are engaging in terrorist plotting. One reason is the growing tools available to law enforcement to detect terrorist activity, which increases the odds that activities that may in the past have been overlooked are instead discovered.” In other words, the uptick is due to increasingly efficient suppression.

A close examination of the arrests, however, indicates that a good part of the uptick was owed to the increased recruitment of young Somalis following the 2007 invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia, a hated enemy. Intense nationalism, clan ties, and war stories by veterans of Somalia’s incessant wars appear to have been more important than jihadist ideology, although Somalia’s al Shabab has since formally become a branch of al Qaeda, and a number of the American recruits have carried out suicide bombings in Somalia.

The recruiting effort was discovered in 2008. Federal authorities and local police working with members of the local Somali communities have largely shut down this trickle.

Some of the 2009 and 2010 cases also represent the culmination of investigations initiated as far back as 2005. Removing the Somalis and older cases blunts the 2009 spike. The total number of cases and individuals declined sharply in 2011.

America’s jihadists are a diverse bunch. Their ages range from the mid-teens to 76; their average age is 32. Almost three-quarters are U.S. citizens, the majority of them native born; only a handful of those arrested are in the country illegally. About a quarter of them are U.S.-born with non-Muslim names—mostly converts. Educational levels range from high-school dropouts to those holding post-graduate degrees. The percentages coincide roughly with the U.S. national average.

Jihadist recruiting themes emphasize religious duty, defense of Islam against infidel aggression, restoration of honor, and the promise of paradise. Faith is one of the reasons why young men radicalize and recruit themselves to terrorism, but it is not always the major factor. Personal circumstances appear to be more important. Would-be jihadist warriors are angry, eager for adventure, out to assuage personal humiliation and demonstrate their manhood. Many appear to be motivated by personal crises—terrorism does not attract the well-adjusted. They are stray dogs, not lone wolves.

They find resonance and reinforcement on the Internet where they can threaten, exhort each other to action, and engage in the fantasies of the powerless. They download violent jihadist videos along with porn and other Internet offal. Participants in online jihad may number in the thousands, almost all of whom are content to participate vicariously. The Internet gives them an opportunity to vent without the risks of taking action in the real world. For many 20-somethings, the Internet is the real world. Al Qaeda has managed to create a virtual army, which thus far, has remained virtual.

Brooks notes that America’s jihadist terrorists have demonstrated little competence. In fact, they have been remarkably incompetent. She suggests that the reasons are the country’s “impermissive security” environment and the fact that the homegrown terrorists lack the skills and savvy of seasoned international terrorists. While both statements may be true, they do not explain why there have been so few plots to begin with, even fewer with anything like an operational plan.

The only two cases with casualties involved lone gunmen. Carlos Bledsoe killed an Army recruiting officer and wounded another in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas. Guns are readily available in the United States and even mentally disturbed gunmen have demonstrated their ability to arm themselves and kill large numbers of people. The fact that they don’t lack for means suggests a determination deficit on the part of the jihadists.

Second, terrorists do not fall to earth seasoned and savvy. They all start out as amateurs and get better with on-the-job experience. The absence of any continuing clandestine organization precludes learning.

Elsewhere, Brooks has suggested that the success of the authorities has acted as a deterrent, which is a more promising proposition. Anyone capable of calculating risk would wisely confine their jihad efforts to Internet braggadocio, leaving actual attempts to the most determined, but not always the most effective. A deterrent theory, however, suggests that if authorities were not so effective, we would see more terrorism, because the intent is there. Acting on it is the variable.

Nor can comfort be drawn from the fact that America’s jihadists are not smart operators. A short distance separates the very foolish from the extremely dangerous. Given that Americans unrealistically have come to expect 100 percent security, a single terrorist success could provoke paroxysms of panic and overreaction.

The Conversation

From Influence to Action

Thank you to my colleagues for the opportunity to discuss these critical issues related to homegrown terrorism in the United States.

A few points in reaction –

First, in response to Douglas Farah’s essay, I agree it is abhorrent to think about militants of any ideological disposition—whether they be Muslim extremists or those associated with other religious or ideological extremes on the left or right—advocating ideas that could inspire others to attack their fellow Americans.

However, it is unclear that the presence of those advocating fundamentalist ideas translates clearly into an enhanced threat of terrorism in the Untied States, for at least two reasons. First, even if some radicals do supply the rationale for engaging in terrorism, there have to be converts willing to take up the call to action. If the efforts to spread radical ideas in the United States are as comprehensive and dangerous as Farah suggests, the small number who have actually engaged in terrorist activity is surprising. That these temptations to violence are limited is underscored by Brian Michael Jenkins’s comments about Al Qaeda’s concerted, yet largely failed, campaign to exhort Americans to take up arms in the United States.

Indeed, there are good reasons to be cautious about expecting that if individuals are influenced by fundamentalist ideas, that they will actually act on those ideas. Such an argument posits a faulty connection between attitudes and behavior, suggesting that violent action is a natural, if not inevitable outgrowth of extremist beliefs. As scholars of radicalization have long observed, however, knowing when any single individual will turn to violence, let alone in what incidence radicalizing individuals will actually take the step of engaging in terrorism, has proven extremely difficult. Given that an individual’s willingness to act seems to depend on a complex and variable cocktail of ideological and psychological factors, we should resist drawing direct lines between exposure to radical ideas and terrorist action.

Second, since the issue was raised by all my colleagues, let me clarify why I contend an increase in terrorism arrests does not mean more terrorist activity is occurring in the American population. Changing FBI guidance, the use of assessments or preliminary investigations, and other prerogatives provide authorities more tools to dig up signs of potential terrorist activity at its early stages. This means that people who may have thought about or taken some initial steps toward some incarnation of terrorist activity but who would have abandoned the effort if left to their own devices, are instead detected by law enforcement. Before the investment in grassroots counter-terrorism initiatives (which has increased in recent years), the same number of people could have contemplated terrorist action. The difference is now they are caught before they abandon their terrorist ambitions. The problem is somewhat analogous to cases in which individuals are sickened by a particular disease, but recover before going to a doctor; increased screening efforts might reveal these illnesses, upping disease incidence rates, despite the fact that the disease is no more common than it was prior to the investment in screening—a common issue in medical epidemiology.

Essential also to understanding how law enforcement increases terrorist activity is the large number of sting operations that involve very incompetent terrorists. There are good reasons to suspect that because these individuals lack co-conspirators, skills, resources, and self-discipline, their plots would have remained aspirational without law enforcement’s involvement during the plot’s operational advancement. By providing all those assets in the course of sting operations, the FBI is actually generating serious plots, which are counted in terrorism statistics, where there otherwise might have been few.

Finally, Michael German is right that I do not intend to say that we need to spend more on law enforcement to ensure that homegrown terrorism remains a small threat. In fact, a key basis of the impermissive security environment observed in the United States is the resilience of Muslim communities and their demonstrated willingness to self-police and deter and expose militants in their midst. Too much or wrongheaded expenditure actually threatens to undercut that key pillar of the security environment, as the controversies associated with NYPD actions demonstrate. What is needed is a balanced discussion that is not just quantitatively focused on how much to spend, but qualitatively oriented on how best to spend and invest in domestic counter-terrorism initiatives. More might be done, for example, to explore and build community outreach programs, which could both prove cost-effective and have the added benefit of working in support of the maintenance of civil liberties rather than at their expense.

Learning from Past Civil Liberties Mistakes

Risa Brooks expresses skepticism regarding radicalization theories that propose a direct or inevitable progression from fundamentalist ideas to violent action. She is entirely justified; empirical studies of terrorists have long found there is no such identifiable pathway, pattern or profile. Yet, as a continuing series of hearings held by Rep. Peter King illustrate, the idea that entire communities should be treated as suspect because of the bad actions of a few is hard to defuse.

This is particularly true with terrorism, which is distinguished from more typical violent crime by its political motivations. Because terrorism is inherently political, the response to terrorism is often political as well. The most obvious manifestation of this phenomenon is the attempt to brand all who share the terrorist groups’ identifying characteristics or ideologies as “fellow travelers” who secretly support the violence, as a way to discredit them or the influence of their ideas. This tactic is not new.

One of the earliest official studies of “radicalization” was initiated in 1919 by the New York State Legislature, in response to a wave of anarchist violence. Using innuendo and a guilt-by-association approach, the Joint Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, known as the “Lusk Committee” after its Chairman, Senator Clayton Lusk, published a 4,000 page report called “Revolutionary Radicalism: Its History, Purpose and Tactics,” that smeared pacifists, teachers, journalists, trade unions, socialists, and civil rights groups as co-conspirators in an international communist campaign to destroy the American way of life. One of its targets was the National Civil Liberties Bureau—forerunner to the American Civil Liberties Union—which it accused of such nefarious deeds as providing lawyers to people charged with seditious activities or refusing military service. Not surprisingly, the Lusk Committee was unsuccessful in finding real threats and its efforts, which included expelling duly elected Socialist Party members from the legislature, were ultimately denounced as “unsound and vicious” assaults on free speech, thought, and association.

Echoes of the Lusk Committee can be heard in the King hearings, and in the biased and factually flawed anti-Muslim training materials produced by the FBI, Homeland Security, and Defense Departments, as well as a host of private actors, that have undoubtedly influenced a generation of federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agents. Once again, law enforcement is targeting and mapping entire communities based on their race, religion, and ethnicity, just as the Lusk Committee did.

And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that civil rights groups are again being singled out for scorn and derision. But modern officials have a tool the Lusk Committee never dreamed of—over-broad material support for terrorism prohibitions that criminalize even “seemingly benign” association with banned groups, such as teaching non-violent dispute resolution, negotiating to enable humanitarian aid efforts in conflict zones, or even speech advocating non-violence. This is the statute Douglas Farah references in his discussion of the Holy Land Foundation case, yet its existence (and the government’s often controversial use of it—see here and here) undermines the rest of his argument. The law today gives the government almost unfettered authority to designate individuals and entities as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and to seize the assets of groups it says materially support terrorism. So if the government had reliable evidence that groups Farah singles out, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim American Society actually support terrorism, it has a formidable arsenal of legal weapons available to shut them down and prosecute them. The fact that it hasn’t speaks volumes.

The Lusk Committee’s pursuit of organizations based on their support for liberal causes distracted the government from investigations of real threats and challenged our country’s commitment to our constitutional values. We should learn from this history rather than repeat it.

Material Support for Terrorism

It is unclear to me what Michael German is referring to in saying that the statute he references undermines the rest of my argument. I am not sure to which argument he is referring. Yes, it is illegal to give material support to a designated terrorist organization, in this case Hamas. This was what the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of. One can argue whether the designation, upheld across Republican and Democratic administrations, is warranted. I believe it is. But one cannot argue that material support, in this case money, (there were no free speech issues in the case) for a designated terrorist organization can be construed as over-broad or equated with teaching non-violent conflict resolution.

The reliable evidence presented in that case, from the internal documents of the Islamist groups themselves, is that CAIR, ISNA and other influential Muslim groups in the United States are directly founded by the Muslim Brotherhood groups in the United States, with the express purpose of advocating the end of democracy and the rule of law, as shown in this summary.

This was not denied or rebutted during the trial. Hamas, according to its own founding charter (Article 2) declares itself to be a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and defines the Muslim Brotherhood as “a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.”

So, while the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring in the United States are not designated terrorist organizations, the violent branch (Hamas) is. This to me demonstrates that the laws can be applied in a nuanced, narrow way to go after the actual supporters of terrorism rather than being used in an over broad sense, as German says, to infringe on civil liberties.

But my broader point was that these groups (with a total membership of a few thousand, making them a small minority within the Muslim community but the ones with the loudest political megaphone) embrace a theology that supports and justifies types of terrorism and anti-democratic forms of government. This is not illegal, nor has it been sanctioned. But it is dangerous and a potential pull factor in the recruitment of those who can be radicalized. The fact these groups have not been shut down is a tribute to the tolerance for free speech and what German calls “seemingly benign” associations. Several of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups have been convicted of terrorist activities (Abdurahman Alamoudi, Mousa Abu Marzook, Sami al-Arian and others) but the organizations they founded and directed continue. This is not the Lusk Committee or anything resembling that. It is an attempt to explain who these groups are and how they contribute in the world of radicalization. The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups are still in existence, I think, strengthens rather than weakens my argument.

Guilt by Association

To clear up Douglas Farah’s confusion, the “seemingly benign” language is not mine (which is why I put it in quotes), rather it comes from Chief Justice John Roberts’ description (pdf) of the broad scope of the material support prohibition, which the Supreme Court held could criminalize association with a U.S. government-designated terrorist organization even if intended only to provide humanitarian aid in conflict zones or dissuade the group from violence. Indeed, the Holy Land Foundation case Farah references is an example of this broad prosecutorial authority, not to mention the government’s shuttering of several Muslim charities through asset seizure powers exercised without prosecution, or even the opportunity to challenge the government’s claims.

The point of my argument was not to re-litigate the Holy Land Foundation case, as he suggests, but to challenge the notion that the other groups he mentioned pose a security threat to the United States, which is the topic of this discussion. The fact that the government, despite its robust powers and demonstrated aggressiveness in using them, has not seized the assets or charged criminally the groups Farah disparages as having a “dangerous” theology is a pretty good indicator that it has no credible evidence to believe they pose a threat. Under current rules the government could even shut them down using secret evidence it never has to expose to adversarial scrutiny. These groups may very well have associations and ideologies that Farah and others find objectionable, and as a free speech advocate I wholeheartedly support his right to express such concerns, but that doesn’t make these groups, or their ideas, a security threat. And it is an entirely different matter when government officials express such opinions in a manner that denies these organizations the opportunity to defend themselves, in violation of their Fifth Amendment due process rights.

Our founders made clear that government has no business policing Americans’ ideas, speech, religion or associations, and it is important, especially in times of peril, to realize these freedoms are our strength and not a weakness. As New York Governor Al Smith said in vetoing Lusk Committee legislation targeting the groups it found dangerous based on their “radical” ideas and associations: “It is a confession of the weakness of our faith in the righteousness of our cause when we attempt to suppress by law those who do not agree with us.” Using a legislative forum to smear individuals and organizations as threats based on their ideas and associations is as wrong and counter-productive today as it was during Chairman Lusk’s reign.

Who Are the Targets?

In the context of the developing debate between Farah and German, I too remain puzzled about the implications of Muslim Brotherhood groups who espouse extremist ideas, and whether these encourage homegrown terrorism in the United States.

The concern seems to be that extremist ideology and its adherents will contribute to the “radicalization” of Americans. Such casual use of the term radicalization does little to promote a clear sense of the phenomenon and presupposes, as I argued previously, that radical ideas naturally produce terrorist action. Some individuals who identify as members of a Muslim Brotherhood group may preach hate and exhort followers to despicable acts. Still, in order to have a sensible debate about what compromises to civil liberties should be sustained to limit hateful speech and groups that engage in it, there has to be concrete evidence that those words actually generate a security threat in the United States.

One issue that complicates the debate is highlighted by Brian Jenkins when he observes that many of those arrested in 2009 and 2010 were Al Shabab recruits, influenced by then-current events in Somalia. Some definitions of homegrown terrorism treat as a uniform phenomenon Muslim American citizens or residents who engage in any form of terrorist activity. By those definitions, providing material support to Hamas, joining the Afghan Taliban or Al Shabab, and plotting to bomb a subway in the United States are equivalent acts of homegrown terrorism. One could argue, however, that the motivations driving an individual to provide material support to the Palestinian Hamas are distinct from those that might drive American residents or citizens to wage attacks against their fellow citizens in the United States. One could raise similar questions about aiding or joining an overseas militant group such as al Shabab or the Afghan Taliban that is fighting what the movement perceives as a foreign occupation. In other words, we should be wary of assuming that Muslims aiding or joining any and all foreign militant organizations constitutes evidence of a homegrown terrorist threat in the United States.

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